Tag: OWS

Occupy Wall Street NYC now has a web site for its General Assembly  with up dates and information. Very informative and user friendly. It has information about events, a bulletin board, groups and minutes of the GA meetings.

A musician took a stand at last night’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gala, which was attended President Obama and a slew of world leaders.

Hawaiian guitarist Makana, who has performed at the White House, wore a shirt that read “Occupy With Aloha” and played a song inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests.

“We’ll occupy the streets, we’ll occupy the courts, we’ll occupy the offices of you, till you do the bidding of the many, not the few,” he sang at the Wakiki event. “The time has come for us to voice our rage.”

Last night, Portland television viewers were treated to wall-to-wall, all-local-channels, helicopters-hovering coverage of the approach – and uneventful passage – of Mayor Sam Adams’ three-day deadline of 12:01am to close the public parks where #OccupyPortland camped. [..]

It was a sad example of vast local newscaster resources marshaled around an approaching deadline – three days ago, Mayor Sam Adams told #Occupy that the downtown parks would be closed at 12:01am Sunday morning. The broadcast news folks created as much tension as they could muster as the deadline approached: helicopters in the air providing overhead views of streets and the parks, on-the-street correspondents interviewing patient, calm and friendly Police Bureau spokesmen who described their core mission: keeping people safe while encouraging everyone to leave. There were shaky handheld camera pans across the – mostly empty – campgrounds, as well as shaky video of – not terribly scary – protesters hiding up in trees! [..]

The palpable frustration among the local newscasters – no local Emmy nominations were generated last night – helped me understand that from the very top of our broadcast media to the very lowest rungs, there is a fundamental conflict between the message of the demonstrators and the needs of the media. Media requires conflict. The demonstrators were peaceful. In the very best #Occupy cases, like in Portland, the communication and engagement of the local police was calm, patient, and trustworthy. Despite the media’s best efforts, news wasn’t made last night in Portland. But not for lack of trying.

Some for the best coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests has been by Kevin Gosztola @ FDL. Kevin is currently in the Northeast delivering supplies to the Occupy camps from donations collected from the OccupySupply drive by FDL.

Oct. 17, 2011

Albuquerque International Sunport Security Checkpoint:

I pass a camera crew filming the ticket counter. I stop and consider telling them what I am about to do, but decide against it. They probably won’t care. Instead, I wheel my baggage to the security area.

I can feel my heart beat in my chest. I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve always said “Yes sir,” even when I didn’t agree. Even this simple act fills me with conflicting emotions.

New Mexico is far warmer than my native Pacific Northwest. I’m sweating by the time I reach the first inspection of my ID. I’m sure I already look like a terrorist. The TSA agent, perched on his stool, takes no notice. I look enough like my driver’s license and I have a valid airline ticket. He black lights my ID and lets me pass with hardly a glance.

I’ve come here to moonlight from my real job. My daughter had an operation, and I had to come up with thousands in deductible. She’s in college and, so far, I’ve managed to keep her from becoming a debt slave, like her mother. I took eight extra weekends of work in the Land of Enchantment to cover the cost. I’m lucky, I guess, I can do that. Others, with fewer job opportunities, have no choice but to go bankrupt.

My heart kicks it up another notch when I get to the conveyor belt. Shouldn’t have had that coffee this morning but thank God I didn’t eat anything, or I’d be hugging the trash can right now.

Come on, I tell myself, what are they going to do? Confiscate your toothpaste? Say something mean to you? So what. Relax. You can do this. You should do this. You have to do this.

I take off my shoes and strip my backpack of computer and the baggie of incidentals. I stand in line while my armpits grow embarrassingly moist and I feel my heart race. I think, Get a hold of yourself. You’re being a drama queen.

When it is my turn, I decline to go through the monitor that scans under your clothes, as I always do. The TSA agent starts his spiel about how safe it is. I’ve done my research. His statements are questionable, but that is not why I am doing this. I start my own spiel.

“The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution reads: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, an particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Occupy Wall Street NYC now has a web site for its General Assembly  with up dates and information. Very informative and user friendly. It has information about events, a bulletin board, groups and minutes of the GA meetings.

Joan Baez sings in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street “My Apple Pie” a song she wrote in the 70s changing lyrics to “Time To Occupy”

On Veteran’s Day, we set out to write about Occupy Wall Street without any idea of what to expect. We had word that there were going to be demonstrations all over the city- one in Central Park, and a concert in Foley Square.

We devoted the most time to the concert, where around 300 people stood smiling in the cold. Joan Baez was headlining, and it seemed like a good opportunity for pictures.

Check out the pictures

But it ended up being much more- because it was there that we noticed something had happened to Occupy Wall Street without it trying, and perhaps without it knowing. The amorphous movement had become a structured thing.

In the early days, we would enter the park and ask questions. We would receive answers, but they were without authority. ‘Well, this is what you should know, but I am no one to tell you. We all speak for each other in this place.’

Now it’s different. Occupy Wall Street now has a structure and a culture all its own, developed rapidly though the use of technology, the confrontation of adversity, and self-imposed isolation. They do, after all, live in a park on their own.

On Veteran’s Day it all showed. [..]

Occupy Wall Street NYC now has a web site for its General Assembly  with up dates and information. Very informative and user friendly. It has information about events, a bulletin board, groups and minutes of the GA meetings.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination aboard the USS Yorktown in Charleston, SC was interrupted by an OWS mike check. Ms Bachmann looked confused and was escorted off the stage by a police officer and staffer. When she returned to the stage she quipped “Don’t you love the First Amendment?” Yes. we do, Michelle, and it would have been “presidential” moment, if you had told your supporters to let them speak instead of being shouted down and you walking away instead of listening and responding to their message.

Across the country, police have used undercover and/or plainsclothed police officers to monitor occupations and protests that are a part of the 99 Percent Movement. [..]

Shavies thinks his fellow police officers are over-using heavy-handed tactics.

Across the country, police have used undercover and/or plainsclothed police officers to monitor occupations and protests that are a part of the 99 Percent Movement. Earlier today, the Tennessean published excerpts from emails sent by the Tennessee Highway Patrol that confirmed not only that police were infiltrating Occupy Nashville but that they were hoping for the movement’s demise.

In a video released last month, Oakland Police Officer Fred Shavies was outed as one of these plainsclothed officers at Occupy Oakland. Watch it.

Now, in an interview with Justin Warren, Shavies said that he was just doing his job and that he actually supports the movement. He said that the police brutality that occurred could be our generation’s Birmingham – referring to the civil rights struggle in the South – and that he hopes the movement is a turning point for changing the country:

   SHAVIES: I’m a police officer. I’m part of the 99 percent. […] In the ’60s when people would protest, would gather in order to bring about change, right? Those protests were nonviolent they were peaceful assemblies. They were broken up with dogs, hoses, sticks. […] It looks like there was a square, and police shot tear gas. That could be the photograph or the video for our generation. That’s our Birmingham. So, twenty years from now this movement could be the turning point, the tipping point, right. It’s about time your generation stood up for something. It’s about time young people are in the streets. […] Ya’ll don’t need to throw gas canisters into a group of people occupying an intersection.

Occupy Wall Street NYC now has a web site for its General Assembly  with up dates and information. Very informative and user friendly. It has information about events, a bulletin board, groups and minutes of the GA meetings.

NEWARK – Twenty-two protesters planning to walk 240 miles to Washington, D.C., hiked through Newark on Broad Street about 6 p.m. tonight bearing backpacks, dish soap and American flags.

These mobile Occupy Wall Street protesters hoped to gather supporters as they walk through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland, on their way to Washington for a protest planned for Nov. 23.

That’s the date for a congressional committee to decide whether to support President Obama’s extension of Bush-era tax cuts.

Occupy Wall Street NYC now has a web site for its General Assembly  with up dates and information. Very informative and user friendly. It has information about events, a bulletin board, groups and minutes of the GA meetings.

Musicians David Crosby and Graham Nash discuss their impressions of the Occupy Wall Street movement with Keith. The duo also performs an original song a cappella.

Occupy Wall Street NYC now has a web site for its General Assembly  with up dates and information. Very informative and user friendly. It has information about events, a bulletin board, groups and minutes of the GA meetings.

Scott Campbell, a participant in the Occupy Oakland movement, describes the unprovoked police attack that left him severely wounded. “There was absolutely no warning whatsoever,” says Campbell.

On November 23rd, the Congressional Deficit Reduction Super-Committee will meet to decide on whether or not to keep Obama’s extension to the Bush tax-cuts – which only benefit the richest 1% of Americans in any kind of significant way. Luckily, a group of OWS’ers are embarking on a two-week march from Liberty Plaza to the Whitehouse to let the committee know what the 99% think about these cuts. Join the march to make sure these tax cuts for the richest 1% of Americans are allowed to die!

More information:

The 20 mile a day/2 week march from Liberty Square to DC is set to leave this Wednesday, November 9 at noon. On Wednesday we’ll be leaving Liberty Square and marching to the New York Waterway/Hudson River Ferry and onward to Elizabeth, NJ. This is our first stop. Everyone is welcome to join this two week march. If you’d like to participate, but can’t commit for two weeks you’re welcome to join us for the day or help send us off!

Occupy Wall Street NYC now has a web site for its General Assembly  with up dates and information. Very informative and user friendly. It has information about events, a bulletin board, groups and minutes of the GA meetings.

The march will assemble at 181 St. and St. Nicholas Av in upper Manhattan at 10:30 AM. Protesters will march down Broadway back to Liberty Park. Organizers say the aim of the 11 mile march is to connect Black and Latino residents of Northern Manhattan who support Occupy Wall Street with residents from Harlem, the West Side and Greenwich Village.

Among 1,005 adults surveyed, 35 percent had a favorable impression of the protest movement that began in New York City and gained support worldwide. Only 16 percent could say the same for Wall Street and large corporations.

Twenty-nine percent had a favorable impression of the tea party movement and 21 percent of government in Washington. [..]

Wall Street and large corporations tied with Washington government in unpopularity, with 71 percent of those polled saying they had an unfavorable impression of big business and Washington. The tea party got a 50 percent unfavorable response and Occupy Wall Street 40 percent.

Occupy Wall Street NYC now has a web site for its General Assembly  with up dates and information. Very informative and user friendly. It has information about events, a bulletin board, groups and minutes of the GA meetings.

Occupy Wall Street NYC now has a web site for its General Assembly  with up dates and information. Very informative and user friendly. It has information about events, a bulletin board, groups and minutes of the GA meetings.

To help expose the looming cash-for-immunity deal between the Obama administration and big banks, there will be a march from Liberty Square to the U.S. Court House Building at Foley Square on November 5th.

The march will gather at 2:00pm on the east side steps at Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park), and will arrive at Foley Square at 3:00pm. Join the Facebook event page

President Obama is on the brink of cutting a backroom deal that would give bankers broad immunity for illegally throwing tens of thousands of Americans out of their homes. The Administration is pressuring state attorneys general to abandon an ongoing investigation into the massive “robo-signing” fraud, in exchange for a relatively small payoff by the banks.

Numerous investigations by state and federal authorities have demonstrated that banks used illegal procedures to make tens of thousands of foreclosures over the past decade. Rushing to a settlement before the full extent of the fraud is known would be a grave injustice to those who were illegally foreclosed upon and those still struggling to stay in their homes.

“We will not stand for a system that gives campaign contributors a right to immunity, while serving foreclosure papers to the 99%,” said Beth Bogart, a volunteer with Occupy Wall Street. “We will not stand for a country where bankers that issued deadly mortgage-backed securities are bailed out, but homeowners with mortgages are illegally thrown out on the street.”

If we shift our funds from the for-profit banking institutions in favor of not-for-profit credit unions before this date, we will send a clear message that conscious consumers won’t support companies with unethical business practices. It’s time to invest in local community growth!

The masks are from the 2006 film V for Vendetta where one is worn by an enigmatic lone anarchist who, in the graphic novel on which it is based, uses Fawkes as a role model in his quest to end the rule of a fictional fascist party in the UK.

Early in the book V destroys the Houses of Parliament by blowing it up, something Fawkes had planned and failed to do in 1605.

British graphic novel artist David Lloyd is the man who created the original image of the mask for a comic strip written by Alan Moore. Lloyd compares its use by protesters to the way Alberto Korda’s famous photograph of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara became a fashionable symbol for young people across the world.

“The Guy Fawkes mask has now become a common brand and a convenient placard to use in protest against tyranny – and I’m happy with people using it, it seems quite unique, an icon of popular culture being used this way,” he says.

A curious Lloyd visited the Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park, New York, to have a look at some of the people wearing his mask.

“My feeling is the Anonymous group needed an all-purpose image to hide their identity and also symbolise that they stand for individualism – V for Vendetta is a story about one person against the system.”

The film of V for Vendetta ends with an image of a crowd of Londoners all wearing Guy Fawkes masks, unarmed and marching on parliament.

It is that image of collective identification and simultaneous anonymity that is appealing to Anonymous and other groups, says Rich Johnston, a commentator on the world of comics.